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Florian Habicht

Director

 Florian Habicht

Biography

With an art-school background and avant-garde sensibilities, director Florian Habicht is responsible for some of this decade's most original New Zealand films. His debut feature Woodenhead, a surreal musical fairytale, was followed by iconic documentary Kaikohe Demolition and Rubbings from a Live Man, a documentary about performance artist Warwick Broadhead.

Habicht was born in Berlin in 1975 to German/Austrian parents and relocated to the Bay of Islands with his family when he was eight. He went to high school in Kerikeri before attending the University of Auckland's Elam Art school, and graduating in 1998.

There he began to make films using his classmates as actors and collaborators. The first of these to gain recognition was Leibestraume (2000), about eccentric musician Killer Ray.

Habicht scored a cult hit in 2003 with his digital feature Woodenhead, a surreal musical fairytale for which the soundtrack was recorded first and then footage shot to match. Woodenhead was nominated in the Best Digital Feature section of the New Zealand Film and TV Awards and the film screened at a range of leading international festivals.

With his next film Kaikohe Demolition (2004) Habicht turned to documentary. An intimate and poetic portrayal of Kaikohe's demolition derby, the film received a theatrical release in New Zealand and went on to win Best Digital Feature at the New Zealand Screen Awards.

The same year, Habicht attended the Binger Institute Filmlab in Amsterdam to develop his feature script Permissive Paradise.

In 2008, he completed Rubbings from a Live Man, a performed documentary about artist and theatre practitioner Warwick Broadhead. The film premiered at the New Zealand International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Film (under $1 million) at the New Zealand Film and TV Awards.

Habicht was the 2004 SPADA New Filmmaker of the Year and is the recipient of the inaugural Harriet Friedlander New York Artist Residency, which he takes up in 2009.

In July 2009 he unveiled his latest work, Land of the Long White Cloud. The documentary returns to the Northland locales of Kaikohe Demolition, but moves on from crashing cars to a five-day fishing competition held on 90 Mile Beach. Around the same time Habicht began a year long residency in the United States, as the inaugural recipient of the Harriet Friedlander New York Residency.  IIn